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Some Views On The News

Let’s be frank. This Ocean City Mayor and Council are a joke. I hope everyone votes new. Goofy could be more fair.

Let me point out some recent happenings and you can decide yourself.

The city manager, who is not voted for by the public, makes an easy $200,000 plus a year with salary and benefits, but we can’t afford to recycle.

We legally take someone’s land, 65th Street Slide and Ride, that they had worked their entire lives for and didn’t care that we were also taking away their future.

They say they didn’t raise taxes, but forget to mention almost everything else was raised like parking fees, building fees, taxi medallions, train ride at Winterfest, tram Boardwalk rides, Lordy I could go on and on.

Oh, who has turned in their cell phones?

What about the police cars that were or were not deemed necessary to be driven home? Ever get that mess straightened out?

We have a $105 million budget and maybe 9,000 residents, and they still want more. Did you know the town ran at a loss last fiscal year, meaning it spent more than it made.

Smoking ban on the boards. Can this town try placing ash trays up there? Maybe give this a try before it pisses off one sixth of adult Americans.

Try cutting the police budget by having the large nightclubs pay for their own security nightly instead of the town cops and the town’s payroll do it for free. If they can’t control their environment, lower the number of patrons allowed and put their liquor licenses on the line if things get out of control.

Try hiring seasonal workers, like college students to drive the Boardwalk trams. They are not eligible for unemployment and that could save tons.

Try charging every franchised business holder a business license fee in addition to their franchise fee. Joe Hall said he’d look into it, but I guess he forgot.

Try the buses, why should the high school seniors get a free bus pass when they aren’t the legal drinking age of 21. They should not be drinking anyway.

Leaders and followers. Why does this silly council always look to other jurisdictions for ideas and direction? Can’t they think on their own? We voted to be leaders not followers.

Let’s go to the airport. When planes come in and land and the passengers ask for a taxi, airport employees, in uniform, on town land, take people to bars in their personal vehicles. Is risk management aware of this and where would liability fall? I asked the airport manager about this and was told he can’t control what town employees do in town uniforms on town land. Maybe he should phone BWI or Dulles and ask for a suggestion.

Another fund-raising idea is charging food and beer delivery trucks a per-vehicle fee like taxis pay. Let’s go one step farther and add that same fee to every contractor that uses our town roads. The company could get a business license and a per-vehicle fee could be added then they could place a sticker in their windows, after all, they are using our streets and our homeowners and our tourists to profit. The silly council has not been fair in forgetting to tax them.

As crowded as this town is, the police should have a no-chase policy. If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of the employees at the Party Block, who alerted Pickles Pub management this summer that a racing car was heading their way, and to clear their sidewalks, innocent people would have died. A similar situation happened at 32nd Street. How long can our luck hold out?

Final thought for now because I could go on for weeks: how long after the election will it be before the council votes themselves a raise?

Christy Freeman Ocean City
Town Hall Meeting On Wind Turbines Near
Editor:

I want to alert residents in our area that a Town Hall meeting on offshore wind energy is planned for Thursday, Sept. 23 at Dewees Hall in the St. Paul’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, located on 302 N. Baltimore Ave., Ocean City. The meeting will begin at 6:30 with informational displays; presentations will follow from 7-7:30; and a question and answer period will last from 7:30-8:30.

Many local residents have followed the progress over the past several years as Bluewater Wind and local environmental groups made the case for wind energy along the Delaware shore. Now Delaware has become the leader in developing offshore wind farms.

In March 2010, the Maryland Energy Administration published a Plan to Increase Maryland’s Renewable Energy Portfolio by 20% by 2022. The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) will require Maryland’s power providers to buy or produce some of the electricity they sell from renewable resources, (solar, wind, biomass, etc.) by 2022. According to the report, 20% would guarantee a market for renewable energy. The plan predicts that by 2022, twice as much clean, emission-free energy will be produced from offshore wind power than from all other clean energy sources combined.

No one expects offshore wind power to be the entire answer to our energy problems. But if we are serious about reducing harmful emissions in our environment, we need to support conservation of resources and every reasonable form of clean energy.

If you want to know the full story, come learn about where the best sites are, what this would look like and the impacts offshore wind farms would have on Maryland.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend so that the organizers have an idea of how many persons to accommodate. http://www.EnvironmentMaryland.org/wind-forum or call Tom Carlson, 240-396-2035.

Linda Eckert
Ocean City
Clarifying Story
Editor:

Regarding the Sept. 3 story, “County Murder Conviction Overturned, New Trial Ahead,” the article did not contain the whole story.

It is true that the defendant was tried before a jury and convicted. It is true as well that that conviction was reversed for purely technical reasons not relating to the facts of the case by the Court of Special Appeals, Maryland’s intermediate appellate court.

What your story did not report, however, is that upon being advised of the opinion of the intermediate appellate court, my office contacted the appellate division of the Office of the Attorney General and requested that it request an appeal to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s supreme court. The Attorney General honored my request and filed the necessary papers. I learned about two weeks ago that the Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal of the decision of the Court of Special Appeals.

I remain cautiously optimistic that the hard work and diligence of the investigating police, the prosecutors as well as the trial judge and jury will ultimately be affirmed.